Recent content by Brian_P

I like it! Seems thoughtfully designed to serve multiple purposes concurrently. Yeah... seems like a recurring theme here. If you want to hide shop space in a cosmetically appealing fashion (and don't have access to a nice old building or something), building on multiple levels is the ideal...

That’s a great idea. I tend to do work when time permits, so weather and light can be an issue, but a lean-to with light and a propane heater could push some of the really dirty projects outside. Gas welding and paint might still be issues, but getting grinding outside could at least reduce the...

Apologies for not responding personally to all of you. Appreciate all of the advice thus far! It does seem like finding a way to go vertically, use hilly terrain to hide height, and avoid sprawling too far horizontally would yield better separation of clean and dirty areas as well as allow more...

Absolutely would love to do that. I'm originally from New England and bank barns (built on a hill with two ground-level stories) are common and always seemed like a brilliant concept to me. I'm guessing building with precast floors for a second level garage would be horrifyingly expensive, but I...

That sounds like a great shop! I'm not worried about bylaws - I refuse to live in an HOA community. I do want to preserve the attractiveness of the site and resale value of the home, hence thinking about the cosmetics of the thing.

That's probably great advice - unfortunately, I'm guessing on this lot I won't have the ability to fully separate buildings. It's a hillside with limited flat space to work with. Hoping I can figure out a decent way to seal the storage off from the work area, though you're probably right about...

Ah. Yeah, a separate shop building would be amazing, but I definitely can't afford a second piece of property in my area. Maybe another year in another home. A rollup or sectional door makes a lot of sense. Just being able to keep grinding dust and paint overspray limited to one area would be a...

Yeah - that's sort of my thought. I've owned a number of houses and done significant work on them before, so not afraid of designing/building. More wondering if anyone has figured out good ways to make a combined parking/workshop structure that functions well for both tasks. I learned a good bit...

Thanks! Yeah, that looks like an intelligently designed shop, I like it. It would be really nice to only have to clean grinding dust out of one segment of the shop every week...

I’ve been lurking here for 7 years or so, and the garage gallery is one of my favorite places on the internet. That said, despite searching, I really haven’t found a lot of thoughts on how to combine parking and working shop space in a relatively architecturally pleasing detached structure that...

Wow! Yeah, this is not NJ... Was just on the loading dock of one of the local gas suppliers, and 90% of the tanks there had a name on the ring. None of them really appeared to be the name of the (very reputable) supplier. The regional convention seems to be that as long as a serviceable tank is...

Thanks! Actually not so sure about the cert - the 2013 is followed by a + and star, which should mean it was a 10-year cert and is good until 2023. $25 sounds pretty good! And, yeah. Gas is a pain, and the local welding shops are a bit of a challenge to deal with (very limited hours, not super...

The closest I've found is by inferring that a 3AA-M174 is the same as a 3AA-2265, which would imply that this might be a 137/150cf tank. Unfortunately, I live nowhere near this gas company - will probably need to change over to something locally available, hence trying to figure out what...

I got this gas cylinder (75/25) with a welder I bought a couple of years ago. It's coming time to swap it out (yes, it lasted a while), and I'm having trouble figuring out what size it is - doesn't quite seem like a standard dimension I'm familiar with. Hydro test seems to still be good, but...

Looks great! Nothing to add, really, just commenting because I've been following along for years and love seeing the updates.